PATIALA: At 53, former bonded labourer and second-generation contractual safai karamchari (sanitation worker) Kuku Ram, has returned with a gold medal for the country in body-building at Mr World championship in Thailand, while his disciple and colleague Mukesh Kumar of Rajpura took the silver.

The 39th NBBUI (Natural Bodybuilding Union International) Mr and Miss World Bodybuilding Championship 2022 was held at the Thai resort of Pattaya from December 17 to 18, where he competed in the 50-plus category and Mukesh in the 40-plus group. Kuku had dropped out of school to be a dairy farmer’s bonded labourer in Patiala for six years to repay a debt of Rs 3,000 and, later, pulled a rickshaw for survival.

The local bodies kept him as safai karamchari for more than 15 years and fired him without regularising his job. He got the same job in the court complex of Rajpura, 25 kilometres from home. His victory has gone unnoticed with the sports authorities and the governments, yet his eyes are on more medals despite the dearth of practice hours.

He said: “My body-building journey started with helping my mother tend to cattle and carry dung cakes to the rooftop quarters. To save time, I’d fill a big vessel with dung cakes, and hauling it for years built my strength.

My dairy farmer master was kind enough to give me good diet. Rickshaw-pulling in 1992 used to fetch me only Rs 70 a day. At 16, I joined Kesar Pahalwan akhara (wrestling academy) for bodybuilding but quit in a few years for being unable to afford the fee.”

To go to the world championship, he took a loan, besides some donations from the court employees and advocates of Rajpura. “I am in this cleaning job since 17. It started with the Patiala municipal committee in 1987, and in 2000 they fired me and 15 others who couldn’t bribe them for regularisation.

For three years, I would do odd-job cleaning for 6 months and work on my body the other six months. In 2004, a company hired me for garbage collection from the Army quarters in Patiala and moved me to Ambala, but my mother’s paralysis attack forced me to return. The Rajpura job also doesn’t save me much after fuel. My father also cleaned for living.”

Mukesh, who won the silver medal, said: “I quit studies after failing to pay the Class-XII examination fee. Bodybuilding was a childhood passion, but it took me 18 years to resume it after I met Kuku Ram. We get more debt than practice time. A regular government job in police or railways will help us.”

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